Government should pluck up the courage to secure children’s rights

THE word on the street is that the Government has decided, without even really discussing the matter, that a referendum on children’s rights would be too controversial. After Lisbon, they are afraid of the risk involved.

What risk, you might ask.

Well, the thinking apparently is that a lot of tough economic decisions have to be made. We’re going to see a lot of cutbacks and they are going to affect the popularity of the Government.

Already next year they’re bracing themselves for a bit of a kicking in the local and European elections. A referendum on anything would be seen as yet another opportunity to beat the Government up.

And there will be those who would oppose a referendum on children’s rights, and would be capable of stoking up all sorts of fear around the subject. We’ve seen that happen often enough in the past, haven’t we?

Of course, if it’s true that that’s the way the Government is thinking, it means they’re already in the bunker. Only a Government that felt under siege would be making the sort of calculation that would allow an important policy objective to be buried by the fear of defeat.

And a Government that feels under siege, only 100 days or so after it was formed, must be in a pretty sorry condition. What on earth is it going to be like after a year in office?

But to get back to the main point. I’d love to claim the credit, on behalf of Barnardos, for starting a national debate about children’s rights and the case for a referendum.

In fact, a great many distinguished people had spoken and written on this subject before we did. And none other than former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who stole a march on us three days before we launched a campaign on the subject.

In a speech the night before his party’s árd fheis in 2006, he said: “It is very clear that our country has frequently failed to respect and protect many of its children. Some of the worst cases of institutional abuse arose partly because of an environment in which the interests of children were often not recognised or were systematically ignored.

It is not enough for us to look at a terrible picture of past abuse and deplore it — we have to be willing to understand its full lessons. And we must learn from these experiences by developing a new culture of recognition and protection of the rights of the child — the most vulnerable members of our community.” And he went on to say: “I would like to see the constitution have a specific provision which requires that, in relevant circumstances, the welfare of the child should be the paramount consideration. And we need to explicitly set out rights of the child in our constitution. My priority is to find a wording for our constitution that will reflect the desire of the Irish people to establish robust safeguards for the rights and liberties of all the children of our nation.”

I think most people who value family life in Ireland welcomed that statement when the then Taoiseach made it.

If you believe in the importance of a happy childhood, as I do, you start from the premise that childhood works best when families work well. That means the best place for a child to develop is at the heart of a nurturing, caring family. And of course, for those purposes a family can be any combination of children and parents, or parent, where love and mutual support exist. It doesn’t have to be mum, dad and 2.8 children.

But if you believe the best place for a child to be is in the heart of a family, you have to believe also that the best thing the State can do to recognise and nurture childhood is to support families.

In my day job, many of the families we work with are beset by all the problems poverty can bring in its wake.

We work daily with people who struggle with drugs, alcohol, domestic violence. We work with people who have been simply overburdened by the circumstances of their lives.

We know that there are a great many situations in which children can suffer in their development because their parents love them but lack the skills and capacity to translate that love into effective parenting.

And for that reason, the capacity to intervene early, to seek to prevent things going wrong is one of the most critical supports we can offer.

It is both a fact and a tragedy — in fact it’s a scandal — that our State spends millions every year on picking up the pieces of broken lives and broken families. But we spend very little on prevention and early intervention.

One of the reasons for that is what you might call a cultural one — the belief that it is simply wrong for the State to intervene.

In fact, within our constitution as it stands, the State is effectively forbidden from intervening in anything that’s happening in a family unless it can be established that the parents “for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children”.

In other words, a State that wants to protect children at risk, or that wants to prevent damage being done, has to effectively blame the parents of the children involved. We come across thousands of situations where blame is the most useless prescription you can bring to bear. Why we insist on building so much policy around the idea of blame is beyond me.

Perhaps it’s because of the argument that any measure that enhances the rights of children will in some sense diminish the rights of families.

But we work with people all the time whose only wish in life is that their children have the right to a decent future.

I HAVE yet to meet a mother or father who has told me that his or her rights should come first over the rights and needs of their children.

If all family policy was built around the principle that the rights and needs of children should be paramount, then the quality of family life would be a lot better than it is for many families right now.

There are other reasons, to do with more specific areas of policy and child protection, why we still urgently need a referendum. The whole area of adoption, the law relating to sexual assault, the importance of being able to share relevant information in appropriate ways that protect children from predators — these are just some of them.

But at the heart of this debate is the need to strengthen support for children and families.

And far from running away from a referendum on these subjects, I believe there are strong political arguments for really going for it. Take on the fearmongers. Campaign for something positive, something real.

Make us world leaders at doing something significant about children and their place in the scheme of things, rather than just paying it lip-service.

Courage and leadership in a vital cause — that’s something, I believe, an awful lot of people would vote for.